This day in search marketing history: January 4
Rap Genius gets out of Google jail, plus: how Rick Santorum made his Google problem worse, Yahoo's new CEO and more
Topic: Pound
TomTom And deCarta Join Forces To Take On Google Maps
Personal navigation device (PND) and maps provider TomTom teamed up with independent mapping and local search company deCarta to offer developers an “end-to-end” alternative to Google Maps. The new joint offering provides connected mapping and navigation, local search and real-time traffic to enterprises and developers. Kim Fennell, CEO of deCarta, laid out for me last week the […]
Bing Maps The Mall
Today Bing added 400 shopping mall maps as part of a larger “venue maps” (indoor mapping) effort. A minor but useful addition to Bing Maps (especially if the initiative expands), users can now zoom in on any of the included malls and see the stores and related details for the various tenant retailers. This is […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, April 20, 2011
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google Testing Instant Previews On Ads (Here’s What It Looks Like) Google is testing a new feature that marries its Instant Previews with AdWords. The test gives searchers a chance to […]
eBay Buys Location-Based Services Pioneer WHERE.com
Adding to its LBS portfolio, eBay has acquired Boston-based WHERE.com, which has a popular mobile app and operates a “hyper-local” mobile ad network. Last year eBay bought local product inventory finder Milo.com. The terms of the WHERE deal were not disclosed. Great Mix of Assets WHERE, which began as uLocate, will apparently be housed in […]
Google’s Mayer Envisions Future Of Location-Based Services At SXSW
Austin’s beloved Amy’s Ice Cream got a shout-out from Google’s Marissa Mayer at the SXSW Interactive conference today, as the new head of local shared her vision for a future enabled by the search company’s technologies. In the scenario Mayer described, she was at Amy’s — which she’d visited for the first time last night […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 11, 2011
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: How Potential Clients Search For An Interactive Agency The search behavior associated with businesses trying to find an interactive agency is very different from other models that I’ve looked at in […]
Google Tests “Check-in Offers” At SXSW
Google recently introduced check-ins for Google Latitude in an effort to reinvigorate the product, which had fallen behind other newer LBS competitors such as Foursquare. Today Google announced that those check-ins will bring offers from local businesses in Austin, Texas (for SXSW). I’m not going to SXSW, but it will be the battle of the […]
Google’s Mobile Moves Tighten Its Grip On Local
It’s all starting to come together. Yesterday Google announced that it was adding check-ins (and loyalty categories) to Latitude. It also announced the global expansion of HotPot, its recommendations tool. Google Places apps for both iPhone and Android allow people to rate and review businesses (HotPot’s objective). And on Places Pages, in Android, you can […]
Google Buys Twitter Sentiment Analyzer fflick To Support “Contextual Discovery”
Google has acquired fflick, according to TechCrunch. The price is reportedly $10 million. Is it a talent acquisition, a tool acquisition or both? It’s both. Using Twitter, the fflick service analyzes and organizes comments about movies: overall, most recent, positive, what your friends have said and so on. This is a very interesting service and […]
Confirmed: Google Readies “Google Offers” Groupon Clone
Google has confirmed that it is preparing a service called “Google Offers,” designed to compete with the popular social buying site Groupon. Google has told Search Engine Land: Google is communicating with small businesses to enlist their support and participation in a test of a pre-paid offers/vouchers program. This initiative is part of an ongoing […]
Google’s John Hanke Speaks About New Mobile Incubator
Last week I wrote briefly about Google’s John Hanke’s move into a new role, based on a Forbes interview with him. Yesterday I got to speak directly with Hanke about his “new gig,” as they say. The former CEO of Keyhole came to lead the “geo team” (Maps, Earth) at Google after Keyhole was acquired […]
Google Maps’ John Hanke Becomes Head Of New “Entrepreneurial Lab”
Last year at a conference in London I was told by someone that Google Maps’ John Hanke was changing roles and that Marissa Mayer had taken over Local. The latter was obviously proven out by very public announcements. An article in Forbes now confirms Hanke’s role as the head of a new Google “entrepreneurial lab” […]
Google’s Marrisa Mayer Talks New Role, LBS And Groupon
MediaBistro interviewed Marissa Mayer about her new role at Google and several related issues. Mayer says she’s “no longer working on search.” She’s now got responsibility for a collection of things associated with Google Maps and local products and some of the company’s mobile products. Mayer again mentions development of “contextual discovery” as one of […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 30, 2010
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: What Every Search Marketer Needs To Know About Web Security All too often web site security is somebody else’s problem. It shouldn’t be. If you work on websites, you should know […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 7, 2010
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: It’s Alive: The Google Chrome OS Laptop Launch Event Google has announced that Chrome OS laptops are now available to consumers through a pilot program for early adopters who prove themselves […]
Report: 7 Percent Of Mobile Internet Users Have Checked Out Location-Based Services
The Pew Internet Project published findings from a recent survey about usage of “location-based services” (LBS). According to the Pew data, 7 percent of mobile Internet users are on location-based services and 4 percent of all internet-using adults “use a service such as Foursquare or Gowalla that allows them to share their location with friends […]
Google Maps On Android Becoming An LBS Juggernaut
One area in which Google services for Android and the iPhone appear to be diverging is Maps. I’m an Android EVO owner and still have iPhone envy except in the Maps department. The combination and integration of Google Maps, Places Pages, Street View and Navigation (with the phone and contacts) has created a kind of […]
Skyhook Wireless Sues Google: You Lie About Android “Openness”
In a lawsuit that will be closely watched Boston’s Skyhook Wireless has sued Google for patent infringement and interfering in its business relationship with Motorola. Skyhook’s principal business is providing location to third parties through the use of cell tower and WiFi location databases often referred to as “triangulation.” Skyhook’s system and technology is widely […]
Google Places API Offers Local Data To ‘Check-in’ Developers
Google previously announced (at its I/O developer conference) the creation of a Places API as part of the Google Maps API. That Places API is now open for business and being made available to third party developers. Booyah’s MyTown “check-in” app is one that has already been using it. In short all the information and […]
Foursquare Hints At Evolution After Getting $20 Million
After a protracted set of M&A discussions with Yahoo and Facebook (and perhaps others), Foursquare announced that it had secured $20 million in funding from several VCs: Union Square Ventures, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. CEO Dennis Crowley discussed the funding and how it would be used in his blog post: With this new […]
Mobile Apps: Search By Another Name
Responding to Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ declaration that on mobile devices “search hasn’t happened,” we’ve now written several times about how mobile apps of various sorts are essentially search by another name. Just to refresh your memory, here’s Jobs making that statement in April of this year: [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuQWPGTBVE4&feature=player_embedded[/youtube] The specific app he references (in case […]
The Yahoo-Nokia Deal: Some Details & Perspective
Yahoo and Nokia made their anticipated partnership announcement this morning in New York. The public elements of the deal include the following: Nokia will be the exclusive, global provider of Yahoo!’s maps and navigation services, integrating Ovi Maps across Yahoo! properties, branded as “powered by Ovi.” Yahoo! will become the exclusive, global provider of Nokia’s […]
Google Buzz Hits Google Maps; Search Suggest Comes To More Countries
Google Buzz has been available on Maps for mobile devices, but now Google has made it possible to access Buzz on Maps for the PC. In addition Google is rolling out localized Search Suggest for Maps in more places around the world. You access the “Buzz layer” on Maps by selecting more, which reveals the […]
A Guide To SXSW For Those Interested In Search Engines & Search Marketing
I’m attending South By Southwest for the first time, later this week. I have to say, already I find SXSW to be overwhelming — and I’m not even there yet! To get myself organized as to how to attack this monster, I starting making a list of search-related sessions. I thought it would be useful […]
Will Mobile Drive Growth For Yahoo?
Yahoo EVP Hilary Schneider told the Reuters Global Media Summit in New York that Yahoo was seeing “incredible . . . extraordinary” growth in mobile (she means usage primarily). The company, by several metrics, is one of the largest in mobile. It operates one of the top three mobile ad networks in the US and […]
Google Buys Teracent, Machine Learning Display Ad Technology
Google announced they have purchased Teracent, a company that uses machine learning to show the different display ad creatives based on dozens of factors. Google bought them to improve and better automate the display ad side of their ad serving technology. Google said: We think that this technology has great potential to improve display advertising […]
Yahoo Trying To Make Display More Like Search
We’ve known for some time, based on a number of studies from Microsoft, Yahoo, SEM firms and ad networks, that an online ad campaign that includes both display and search performs better than one that features only display or search. In another version of that same theme, Yahoo recently said that it was using search […]
iPhone Frenzy, “All You Can Eat” Data, Mobile Internet Now At “Critical Mass”
We will probably look back on last year’s announcement of the iPhone (1.0) as the seminal or galvanizing event of the mobile internet. In fact, the events leading up to the iPhone were a decade or more in the making, but it’s the single moment when the mobile Internet came into focus. The world hasn’t […]